Champions at last! Melbourne City down Sydney FC to claim A-League glory

Well deserved not only the deserved winners for this season but they also play the best football in the league as well Sydney were disappointing even 10 men, the Mariners put Melb City under more pressure than what Sydney FC could have mustered yesterday I feel like Sydney's FC tactics and coaching might be in need of an update for next season. How good is Marco Tilio, such a skilful player and resembles to another skilful dribbler in Daniel Arzani at least he's at a club where they will play him but an very exciting talent. Looking forward to the long off season the circus it brings with player and coaching changes plus a new era with channel 10/paramount taking over the rights.

I would have pulled Brattan after the first yellow, I dont understand what he was doing in this game, it would have been ok if Brattan was aggresive and intense in defence and these things can then happen, however he was leaving Berengeur unmarked in attacking positions multiple times while lazing around , if you look at the header Berengeur missed Brattan doesn;t track him and then jogs back nonchalant. The commentators said he was trying to assert his authority on Berenger when he went and shouldered him in the back late in Citys half , leaving him unmarked to do whatever he wanted thats a joke. For the first city goal if Brattan want to clean someone up that was the point in time to do it, it would have avoided Wilkinsons akward back pedalling display. Caceres on the other hand gets criticised by the commentators when he was coming back to pick up Baumjohan and Kings players. On the plus side for Sydney Barbarouses , Van De Sar looked very good. ​ Corica 1 man down needed a fast striker on the counter attack, instead he left la Fondre on to the end in the front position, Wood only got a few minutes and was on the wing anyway. they scored their first goal on the counter and didnt look that likely once Sydney went down to 10 men and parked the bus . Without gifting them the penalty Sydney could have held on for a penalty shoot. You would think also that a ref that gave that penalty for City would have been very likely to give Baumjohan a penalty which was 10 times more a penalty than Citys.

Well done M City. Always been a huge fan of Atkinson. He, along with such exciting young players as Colokovski and Tilio show they have more to come.

Kayo did the ffa cup games. I always enjoyed watching the early rounds and seeing the regulars at the clubs get a spot light on their decades of work that usually go unnoticed. Very few people get paid that run the state league and npl clubs.

Kisnorbo, the boy from Moonee Ponds. Another Melbourne boy at City. https://www.a-league.com.au/video/kisnorbo-championship-foundational-club-interview-a-league

Yea Wooloongong Wolves beat QLD Lions to qualify for this next FFA Cup. Those games were streamed on Youtube as well. The NPL National Championship is another product James Johnson has mentioned as being undervalued currently, so presumably he has some plans for that competition. If Paramount + are willing to broadcast rd32 FFA Cup matches featuring 2xNPL teams it is not much of a stretch to think they might want show those seven NPL Championship matches. Maybe not thie year, but in future years. Even just the GF. Simplistic production is all thats neededbut they are do or die finals matches featuring the best NPL teams in the country so there is definetly a strong competitive tension element to promote.

It was a good, and great that City won that will bring fresh air into the league next season. Red cards in finals suck! But the player should have known better and SFC got what was coming to them, a reality check just like they did in the ACL. Hope to see Wellington next season in the finals at a packed Sky Stadium.

Wait, the NPL championship is entwined with the FFA Cup? Didn't know that.

Another reason for playing FFA Cup during A-League season. You have you squad for both comps pretty much finalised by AL start, as opposed to just playing whoever you can. In this new dawn, A-L clubs need to make a concerted effort to treat every trophy as important and as though they intend to win it. The half-arsed attitude towards the FFA Cup by some coaches (i.e. Aloisi) is disrespectful to fans. Short-sighted for him too as a cup win would look good on his barren coaching CV. Our season doesn't contain enough games to make fixture congestion excuses (with exceptions maybe). This new era of football is asking fans to take a leap of faith. That faith is repaid by teams going hell for leather in every match they compete in, be that AL, FFA cup or ACL. If I see that from my team the Roar, I'm all in.

I actually watched a bit of the Lions FC (Brisbane) match, who won and got through. :thumbup: A happy accident as I didn't know they were streaming these FFA Cup rounds live.

The My Football YouTube channel streamed round 7 of the ffa cup games so I am guessing it's still on for this off season.

Absolutely. Sufficient crossover between A-L and NPL seasons is required to stage the FFA cup properly. A-L commencing in late Nov and NPLs in Feb-March will do the trick.

So what commences in August will finish by the end of the year I expect. Teams will have qualified on the back of results from 2021. But then the whole process will start again in maybe Feb? NPL and below going off the long run up with 5-7 rounds of knockout qualification. Youd think the semi finals will be held when the league season has 2-4 rounds of the regular season left. The final will be held the weekend after the A-L GF. There will also be an NPL National Championship (7 games total) in a few months to determine that automatic NPL spot in the FFA Cup too I guess.

Yep, HAS to be the major focus with dedicated weekends during a regular season. Can you imagine the hype for clubs hosting A League clubs with like 7-10,000 people cramming into suburban grounds?!! :thumbup:

I luved the Nux :thumbup:

James Johnson has been banging on about setting a match calendar for a while and it's for this exact reason. Fans like certainty. Covid has of course disrupted things but time to get this right moving forward. An FFA Cup played during the A-League season but breaks for weekend cup matches will be much better than staging it as a preseason tournament as per previous years.

And it seems silly to carry them over. All competitions should be decided in one season.

Yeah, I'm confused here. Is this Cup for 2021 or something to be decided in 2022?

August and likely to be the first games on Paramount +? So the competition at large likely to be a bit of a preseason tournament. Will there then be a 2022 FFA Cup held in season during next season? Could be 2xFFA Cups in quick succession...

Also the bottom teams have let half their squads go so it will be interesting to see who actually plays.